We've mostly decided we need to replace the oven, and get new monitors. The oven is coz the grill doesn't work (and hasn't worked in the nearly 9 years we've lived here), the door doesn't shut entirely properly, the internal light has never worked, and the whole thing must be about 15 years old, coz it sure wasn't new when we moved in. I think ovens might be as boring as washing machines to buy, and as this is a built in one then it's got the same sort of fiddly "will it fit" considerations to take into account. Joy.

I haven't looked at anything to do with the oven yet. As I said, boring.

Monitors are coz we quite fancy them, really - J's got a not-that-good LCD (it's adequate, but tech has moved on) and I've got a CRT that's starting to make a high-pitched noise all the time. And these days you get wide-screen largish monitors for not all that much in the grand scheme of things. The plan, such as it is, is to buy J a monitor first and then I'll play some quake on it and see what I think. Then if it's OK we'll get me one of the same. And if it's not then we have a baseline for "better than" which we currently don't really. Although, having said that, J's current monitor is OK so I don't think I'll end up being that fussy.

But once you start looking into it, it all turns into a twisty maze of monitors all alike, and I couldn't find any recent looking round-up articles. I did find http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/ which does reviews & has a selector thingy to give you ideas. But that's a site I've never heard of before, so it gets the requisite pinch of salt. And as always with tech reviews there's lots of talk about things I'm not sure we'll ever notice (various sorts of backlight whatnot, for instance, some of which are technically better but will we care?). I think we're looking at 22" or 24" monitors, and I guess it's going to be 1080p coz nothing seems to be anything else (unless it's lower). Which niggles at me, coz that's a telly thing, monitor res does not have to be HD telly res - and certainly I can't see why either of us would be watching films/telly on the computer when we've perfectly good TV setup at the other side of the room.

We were looking at the Samsung Syncmaster B2230H, coz it's on amazon for ~£130 at the mo. But buried in the reviews there was a note that the monitor settings buttons don't work if you have it plugged in via DVI and you need the windows software to alter things (or plug in via VGA set it up then replug). Which seems bizarre, and possibly a deal breaker. But equally, I can't find anything else about that via google, just that same amazon review. Gah, it could've been simpler, couldn't it?

I'm struggling with similar issues as I shop for a new tv. Everything out there seems MUCH fancier than I actually need for my regular use. And while my tv is now nearly 10 years old, it still works okay... it's just bulky and being square, now non-standard aspect ratio. Sigh.

My parents seem blessed with the ability to just go and buy "something" that does the job, but I always end up worrying about whether I'll get something cheap-but-awful or over-priced or or or. And the internet doesn't help, coz there's always someone out there telling you it's crap or there's a better X over here. And it's almost always the boring things that are like that ;)

Yes. In the end my decisions always seem to come down to some irrelevant detail like color or similar because the endless comparison charts just end up causing that decision loop. I remember picking out the dvd player I used to have solely because it was silver--as all the other dvd players at its price point seemed to be identical as near as I could tell, and I'd at least narrowed down my price range.

No it's not, it's a rubbish res on a big screen. 1080p might be a good res for a window with a game in, on the screen with other stuff happening. It's annoyed me that people now seem to spend money for bigger pixels - why not just sit closer. More pixels please, and the best refresh rates for the screen too, not just linked to cinematic rates.